The Horn of Africa is in Trouble

I've been reading the articles (when I could see straight) and I've been praying, but truthfully with not feeling well and stressing about K on the embassy trip without me (and me feeling sorry for myself), I've been a little too self-absorbed. Isn't that always the way? Hey, I'm a sinner. I try to work on that, but I fail, frequently. Fact.

So, it is time I paid some lip service to what is actually going on in the Horn of Africa. Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya and ETHIOPIA are in trouble. There is a terrible, terrible drought going on. According to the World Health Organization, it is now affecting over 11 million people. 

The shortage of water has caused intensified fighting and is creating many refugees in Somalia, and these people are walking MILES and MILES to find water for themselves and their livestock. 

The lack of water means dead crops (which means less food, and there is already a shortage), and dead livestock (again, less food). 

This also means disease outbreak. When is the last time you worried you might have Cholera? Well, for me, that was never. There are about 4.2 million people facing a Cholera outbreak in Ethiopia right now. Measles is becoming a larger threat, also, which can be deadly to children. There is also fear of Polio. UGH!

I'm not writing this post for any reason other than to possibly inform someone, anyone that this is going on. It sure isn't making my nightly news program or daily newspaper front page. When I look at the globe it is so much smaller to me now, all because of our 10 month old daughter. I hear Ethiopia, and my ears immediately perk up. I suspect that is probably true for our family members and close friends. 

HERE is where I got most of the information I referred to.
HERE is another link about aid agencies needing financial help to help out the Horn of Africa. 


Maybe a video is more your thing:





The scary thing for me was that when I went to the hardprint and electronic version of my newspaper, there was not a single article about the drought. Not one. 


There are many aid agencies trying to get involved, and that is a good thing, but that takes $ and a lot of it. Since we have used World Vision in the past, and they are able to multiply donations by 5 for this situation, that sounded good to my ears. I'm not much of a give me/us/them your hard-earned $ kind of girl. However, I was thinking that even donating $5 in this situation makes it $25. That could be life-saving to someone. Life-saving. Just something to mull over. 


Here is the World Vision Link. If you have another organization that you know is doing amazing things for the drought, please leave it in the comments section! I'd love to check it out and I bet others would too! 






**Also, I'm going to be posting a photograph or two (tomorrow) of a pretty amazing little girl that has been going by the name of Cupcake for some months on this here, blog. Yesssssssss! (Guess, I couldn't make it a whole post without making it about me...unfortunately, I'm not terribly surprised.)